Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, I did not make it to GA this year but I still have plenty to be thankful for.

The new Sneaker in the House (sic) Mike Johnson says separation of church and state is a ‘misnomer’.

The myth of the White Catholic Democrat

A bill aimed at officially severing the Church of England from the British government is set to be introduced in Parliament next month.

PA school district must pay Satanists $200,000 after lawsuit over After School Satan Club.

West Virginia removes 12-step recovery programs for inmate release.

Will Jesus go and get his hair cut after hearing of this crisis?

Leo Igwe continues his good work in Africa. We all need critical thinking corners. Best Wishes to Hellen Kathure too on her new role with the Atheists in Kenya Society.  In Türkiye, Atheists know that they need to be alert to the murderous intentions of some members of the Religion of Peace.

World of Woo:  ‘Smart Drops’ for dumb consumers.

Environment:  World’s biggest iceberg on the move after 30 years.

Jonathan Sacks: Are Science and Religion enemies? Ease up on the left\right brain partitioning though.

New CRISPR systems holds promise for genome editing while long-read sequencing will transform neuroscience.

Long Reads:  Ethics has no foundation.  A conversation with the Pentagon’s outgoing UFO Chief.  A disappearing island: ‘The water is destroying us, one house at a time’. What vintage paparazzi photos teach us about the birth of celebrity culture.  Lessons about learning from ancient Greek philosophers. How my parents swallowed a frog to save me from antisemitism. Bruce McCandless and his Flying Machine.

Sunday Book Club:  The Bee Sting by Paul Murray.

Some photographs taken last week.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Futureproof Podcast:  Science Week Special: What are the biggest threats to humanity?

Coffee Break video: Aliens, God & Science with Sam Harris & Brian Greene. What did our ancient Universe sound like? What the Bible does and doesn’t say.

 

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a good week!

[onyangomakagutuParticipant]

Reg, I think it is Sunday school 26th Nov.

Have a great week ahead

[StregaModerator]

Thanks, Reg!!!

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

Those “Smart Drops” sound like “Cosmic Debris.”

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Ethics has no foundation.

In my opinion this is an interesting attempt to justify moral realism without any evidence or reason.  The author, Andrew Sepielli, ends by invoking the difficulty of how we can know anything.  Hmm.  The problem he has is that he has an irrational attachment to the idea, for no good appreciable reason.

Moral realism says, X is factually morally right, and Y is factually morally wrong.  Sepielli says, this can have no foundation or explanation.

Other kinds of ethics, like evolutionary ethics, say: we feel that X is morally right, and we feel that Y is morally wrong.  There are very good theoretical reasons and foundations for these assertions of feeling.  We are not asked to accept these statements without any evidence, or that they are “free-floating” and without foundation.

[UnseenParticipant]

Ethics has a foundation among people who can agree on one. However, the idea that there is some cosmic, universal, absolute, undeniable, provable ethical system or even individual ethical facts (“It is always wrong to…” “One must always…”) would require an appeal to a cosmic rulesmaker. A deity, in other words.

 

[UnseenParticipant]

“The separation of church and state is a misnomer,” Johnson said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Rep. Johnson doen’t know what a misnomer is. By an analysis of the word itself, it means “wrongly named.” Separation of church and state isn’t a name, it’s a politico-legal concept expressed as a phrase and not as a name.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Thanks for the date correction onyangomakagutu. It was the 25th when I started it!

Enco – I was at this Zappa concert and I did partake in some “smart drops” beforehand 🙂

[UnseenParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

I was at this Zappa concert and I did partake in some “smart drops” beforehand 🙂

Is it true? Do they have a helluva band? Does the J-man play tambourine?

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I remember the concert as an intense experience of sound and light. Sound mostly. It was a last minute thing. I lived in London at the time and got a ticket from some friends I bumped into that afternoon.  I was never a big fan…I absolutely respected them as musicians – but they were not on my radar that much.  I knew of them from the “Smoke on the Water” story and I always liked City of Tiny Lites. Still do!

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

the idea that there is some cosmic, universal, absolute, undeniable, provable ethical system or even individual ethical facts (“It is always wrong to…” “One must always…”) would require an appeal to a cosmic rulesmaker. A deity, in other words.

I think you’re right, that’s the only way it makes sense.  Because God says so.  However, there’s the Euthyphro Dilemma.  So even that is questionable.  Is something good because God says it is, or does God say something is good because it already is?

If one is a Christian, I don’t see the problem with “God created morals” in accordance with God’s nature of benevolence, justice, and enforcing the above, potentially with deadly violence.

The problem with religious morality is that although it’s an accurate representation of human morality, it gets entangled with and distorted by religious purity, sacredness and observance.  It’s not enough to be good.  One has to be a good Christian or Moslem or whatever, as well, and these things don’t necessarily make sense.  That’s where the problems start in my opinion.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Simon, you wrote, “The problem with religious morality is that although it’s an accurate representation of human morality.”

Is there such a thing, a default human morality, that is innate? Or are we hairy apes so malleable in our beliefs and behavior that there is no such thing as an accurate representation of human morality?

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

Is there such a thing, a default human morality, that is innate? Or are we hairy apes so malleable in our beliefs and behavior that there is no such thing as an accurate representation of human morality?

Morality appears to arise in pursuing joint goals.  Each evolved joint goal, together with an evolved method of achieving it, forms an evolved moral domain.

The world over, people have the same ones.  These are: collaborative foraging for mutual benefit; pair-bonding; parenting; patriarchy; and inclusive family fitness.

Patriarchy is a joint goal in that it is a reproductive strategy; but it is a male reproductive strategy and is forced on women.  Parenting, even single parenting, can be seen as a joint goal between the parent and child, for the child to thrive; as well as between parents.

In India, at least, there are a lot of seemingly strange arbitrary rules that are also seen as part of morality.  As far as I can see, these are about “purity” of the soul etc.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

With Zappa dropping smart lyrics and smart melody and smart beats, who would need “smart drops?” 😁

One thing I admired about Zappa (aside from his iconoclastic satire and critique of institutions and versatile music style) was that, while he didn’t care how others ran their lives, as for him and his musical house, he was sober and insisted on sobriety in his musical collaborators.

Choosing devotion to a musical career and upholding standards of excellence is a better way of preventing and fighting addiction than compulsory 12-Step programs that have a recidivism rate of 87 percent. “Higher Powers”, especially forced upon people with court-ordered brainwashing, don’t seem to do the trick.

[Author]

Posts